Christian Leaders

from the heads of the Anglican Church of Canada, The
Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Canada

We are united as Christian leaders
in our concern for the well-being of our neighbors and of God’s good creation
that provides life and livelihood for all God’s creatures. Daily we see and
hear the evidence of a rapidly changing climate. Glaciers are disappearing, the
polar ice cap is melting, and sea levels are rising. Incidents of pollution-created
dead zones in seas and the ocean and toxic algae growth in water supplies are
occurring with greater frequency. Most disturbingly, the concentration of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at an unprecedented rate. At the
same time we also witness in too many instances how the earth’s natural beauty,
a sign of God’s wonderful creativity, has been defiled by pollutants and waste.

Many have reacted to these changes
with grief and anger. In their outrage some have understandably focused on the
neglect and carelessness, both in private industry and in government
regulation, that have contributed to these changes. However, an honest accounting
requires a recognition that we all participate both as consumers and investors
in economies that make intensive and insistent demands for energy. In addition,
as citizens we have chosen to support or acquiesce in policies that shift the
burdens of climate change to communities that are most vulnerable to its
effects. People who are already challenged by poverty and by dislocation
resulting from civil war or famine have limited resources for adapting to
climate change’s effects.

While an accounting of climate
change that has credibility and integrity must include our own repentance, we
find our hope in the promise of God’s own faithfulness to the creation and
humankind and in the liberation that comes from God’s promise.

God, who made the creation and made
it good, has not abandoned it. Daily the Spirit continues to renew the face of
the earth. All who care for the earth
and work for the restoration of its vitality can be confident that they are not
pursuing a lost cause. We serve in concert with God’s own creative and renewing
power.

Moreover, we need not surrender to
political ideologies and other modern mythologies that would divide us into
partisan factions — deserving and undeserving, powerless victims and godless
oppressors. In Christ we have the promise of a life where God has reconciled
the human community. In Christ God sets
us free from the captivity of blaming and shaming. God liberates us for shared
endeavors where we find each other at our best.

While the challenge may seem daunting,
the Spirit’s abundant gifts for service empower us to find common cause with
people who exercise countless insights and skills, embodied in hundreds of
occupations and trades. We have good reason to hope in all the ways God’s grace
is at work among us. We can commend ourselves to the work before us with
confidence in God’s mercy.

Opportunities to act imaginatively
and courageously abound in all our individual callings. The Holy Spirit’s work
in us leads us as faithful consumers and investors in a global economy to make
responsible choices to reduce energy use, carbon emissions, and the wasteful
consumption of water and other natural resources. As citizens, we have voices
to use in educating children about the climate and in shaping public and
corporate policies that affect the environment.
The Spirit has also given us our voices to contribute our witness to
public discussion of just and responsible use of natural resources.

We also have the resources and
responsibility to act together for the common good, especially for those most
vulnerable to the effect of climate change in the spirit of the seventh
Millennium Development Goal, “to ensure environmental stability”. World leaders
will meet this month in New York for a Climate Summit, and in December in Lima,
Peru, to discuss global cooperation on climate change. Working under the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), participants in the
UNFCCC’s negotiations hope for an agreement in 2015 that will move toward reduction
of carbon emissions, development of low carbon technologies, and assistance to
populations most vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate.

We encourage you to take the
initiative to engage decision-makers in this godly work in all arenas of public
life — in government and business, in schools and civic organizations, in
social media and also in our church life.
We are not powerless to act and we are not alone. “We have the power of
the Holy Spirit and the indwelling Spirit of Christ to give us hope and
courage.”i

The present moment is a critical
one, filled with both challenge and opportunity to act as faithful individuals
and churches in solidarity with God’s good creation.